Prout vs Howe
by sunnymadden
Summary: A throwback for Diane. She's at the University of Conneticut with her friend Rebecca Prout and meets "Backseat Becky". Obviously an alternate universe but poses the great conflict of Diane: who she is expected to be vs. who she wants to be. This had obviously turned out to be longer than expected. Third and FINAL chapter is up. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

It was the spring of 1976 and Diane Chambers had just ended her sophmore year of college. Not the same college, though. Her first year was Boston University back east. Her good friend, Rebecca Prout, decided she needed a change of scenery and chose to go to the University of Connecticut for her second year. Diane thought the change would do her good since she was still reeling with her father's death. Maybe if she got out of Massachusettes, she wouldn't be haunted by her father's memory and she can find happiness again albeit elsewhere.

"Rebecca, let's go have some fun," Diane says spontaneously one night while they were both reading in their dorm bunks.

"Oh, do you want to go to the coffee shop for poetry night?" Rebecca asks looking up from her book.

"No, not that," she scuffs. Man, Rebecca was such a stiff. "I mean. Let's go have a drink or two. We've gotten straight A's all year, we deserve it! What do you say?"

"Well, girls like us in a bar?"

"Why not us?" Diane asked frustrated taking Rebecca by the hand and leading them out of their dorm room. Diane couldn't explain it but she needed a release. She just wanted to let her hair down and she didn't know, act like a normal college girl. They only had to walk one block before she spotted Cracked Thunder, a bar that was popular with the campus kids.

"I don't know about this," admitted Rebecca timidly.

"Oh, Rebecca, you got to brighten up and enjoy yourself!" It was truly exhausting trying to pick this girl up. It was then she bumped into a college girl she didn't recognize. She was a beautiful girl though; she had long, auburn hair and green eyes. Her fashion sense was fun and flirty. Diane guessed her to be a sorority girl.

"Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry," Diane said trying to smooth things over.

"I'll forgive you," she says with a smile. "_This_ time!"

The girl and group of friends laugh in her face. Diane looked down at herself and realized what a nerd she looked like compared to that girl. Her hair was cut in a Dorothy Hammil style and she wore a pale pink polo shirt with a gray pencil skirt. She guessed the least she could have done was look less of a pencil-neck.

"Do you know who that was?" Rebecca asked in a snotty tone as they approached a table inside.

"No," Diane admits as they sit down.

"That was Backseat Becky!"

"Who?"

"Her real name is Rebecca Howe and she's a loose woman, I'm telling you!"

"How do you know her? I sure don't!"

"Well, I've just heard stories. I don't associate with her kind and you shouldn't either."

"I don't," she says with an eye roll. She was getting so sick of everybody from her mother to her best friend about who she could and could not associate with. That night she made a promise to herself as she sipped her soda water. She promised herself that she would not be controlled by the whims of the upper class. She promised herself that she would one day be able to hang out with Backseat Becky's kind and not care what she thought. She also promised herself that she would find a bar with just as good looking as the bartender working that night. Rebecca may have thought she was a fish out of water but to Diane this bar was a wonderland. There was something so familiar about this kind of atmosphere and she didn't want to leave.

"I think we should go," Rebecca ordered getting up out of her chair.

"Why? We haven't had real drinks yet!"

"We have tests tomorrow."

"So?"

"Oh come on, Diane. You can't honestly say you're enjoying your time? The music is loud and so aren't half the guys in this place."

"That's very prejudiced of you to say!" she said scuffing at her once again.

"Fine. If this place suits your fancy, I guess you're not who I thought you were..." she says turning on her heels.

Diane fought the urge to stay and got up from the table also. She put the money on the table underneath the glass and followed Rebecca out the door. Rebecca had a smug smile on her face as she met Diane on the other side of the door.

"I knew you would see reason," she says in that holier-than-thou voice that made Diane want to slap her. Did everything in life have to have a reason?


	2. Chapter 2

"How did I not know who she was?" Diane thought to herself as she was alone on the plane back to California. Ugh! Such a disheartening day as it already was, she finds out that the college girl all those years ago who she had bumped into was the one who pretended to be married to Sam. It seemed like a cruel twist of fate as she sat here stewing about it.

Sam had told her all about the real Rebecca Howe while going to the apartment for their afternoon delight of a dessert. She was the one who got the bar after Sam had sold it to sail away into the tropical abyss. She was the one who gave him a job, an infatuation that later turned into a good friendship and eventually his bar back. It all came at a great price to Rebecca herself but Diane figured that was just the name of the game when it came to Sam Malone. Hell, they could have compared notes if they had found the time. A smile flashed across her troubled face. Backseat Becky and the Pencil-Neck were equals.

She couldn't help but think of her once good friend Rebecca Prout. She scuffed at the thought of her. Who the hell would want to be friends with a hoity toity snothead like that. In the later years when she would look back on the day when Rebecca wanted Sam but he didn't want her, she had to have a devious little laugh to herself. You deserved it, she thought, being so judgemental of people. Rebecca definitley wasn't the be all and end all that she liked to think she was. Diane didn't know or didn't care to know what happened to her because she no longer served a purpose in her life, she never really did. You don't let someone you supposedly love hold you back...

An a-ha moment just flashed through her mind. If you love someone, don't hold them back. Who was the one who told her to go follow her dreams? Who was the one who got off the plane just a couple of minutes ago? The kind Rebecca Prout didn't approve of her being around. The one who gave the bar to Backseat Becky on account of herself only to get it back when the cool college girl fell on her face. Sam loved _her_. Not snotty, upper class nerd Rebecca Prout and not flighty, fun loving Rebecca Howe either. She understood for the first time that all the things Sam could ever want was inside of her. She was a whole rainbow of everyone who shaped her or inspired her and he loved her. She can now put her idenity crisis of college to rest. It was never Prout vs. Howe, it was me vs. myself. It doesn't matter anymore. She knew she was who she was and someone other than her father unconditionally loved her for who she was. Diane Chambers understands in this moment that she was not meant to be perfect, she was meant to be whole. She was a brainy, kind, fun woman and she now fully accepted it. Who was she not to be?


	3. Chapter 3

"Sam," Diane commanded quietly on his apartment door. "Open up it's me! I've come back!"

It was ridiculously late at night and she thought for sure he had to be home by now. Where was he? She didn't think he was at the bar. She called and nobody picked up. Oh, God, she thought to herself, please don't have this be the end! I'm ready! I'm ready to give up everything because I now understand everything. I can finally be the woman he deserves and he isn't going to let me be that woman.

"Come on," she said beginning to cry out through her hot tears that seemed to involuntarily roll down her face. "I want you, need you. We can make this work if you just opened the door."

"Hey Lady," an annoyed tennant called from down the hall. "Do you mind?"

Diane pursed her lips and collapsed from exhuastion. She didn't know how much more she could take from this town. How could your hometown and the place you thought you would always call home treat you so cruel? She remembered that day Sam came back for her at the convent and how she prayed for a sign. If it could work then, it could certainly work again, couldn't it? She was going to try, she was just that desparate.

Well, it wasn't going to work exactly like that. Just when she was about to open her mouth to ask a question, God gave her Sam for an answer. He had put her hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. A big smile and gasps of happiness shot out of her as if she had learned she survived the war. Sam had picked her up and hugged her to him tightly. She had wrapped her legs around him in a total embrace. They stayed that way for what seemed like an eternity before Sam opened the apartment door. He never let go of her until he set her down gently on his bed. He kneels down in front of her and just stared at her in amazement. Diane knows enough about Sam to know he's just waiting for an explanation.

"I want to come home."

"You are home."

"Do you want me?"

"When _didn't _I want you? Are you sure you want me?"

"Listen," she said taking his hands in hers. "You weren't supposed to be mine."

"What..." he tries to ask but Diane immeadiately covers his mouth with her hand.

"I was in love with an idea of what love should have been. That has been the biggest mistake of my life. I was always paying attention to what should be and not accepting as is. I accept that you are my love, you are my home, you turned out to be everything I've ever wanted."

"Ditto," was all that Sam could say in that moment. It would have made past Diane furious that she had poured her heart out, expressing her feeling so profoundly while all he could say in return was "ditto." She wasn't mad at all right now. "Ditto" summed up perfectly everything Diane would want him to say to her. It was Sam being honest and real and she was ready to let not only herself but everyone around her be that way. She wraps her arms around her man once more and Sam could only do the same. He was so thankful for this time.

"I can't believe you got off the plane," he said all of a sudden.

"Don't underestimate the things I will do, Sam Malone," she says giving him a kiss on the top of his head.

"Are you really going to stay?" Sam asks breaking away.

"Boston is my home, Sam. It always will be. Everything I love has always been right here."

"Welcome home, Diane Chambers."


End file.
